


Drabbles from Last Drabble Writer Standing Competition

by pennypaperbrain



Series: Pennypaperbrain's Miscellaneous Ficlets [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Double Drabble, Drabble, Exile, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennypaperbrain/pseuds/pennypaperbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My entries for the 2012 LDWS competition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Belonging/s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 1 entry

In hiding, constantly hunting, formally dead for two years, Sherlock has few possessions, and they are all functional: jeans, ammunition, toothbrush, three false passports. He keeps no identifying material, and nothing relating to the three people whom he has made vulnerable. If he dies now, nobody will come to John’s door with news that rips open the newest scar in his mind.

Sherlock remembers the scar on John’s body. The feel of it under his caressing hand, and his own jealousy at knowing that war had owned the man he loves more profoundly than he ever could. That may have turned out to be untrue, but the realisation is hardly a comfort.

Another day, and Sherlock moves on. He engineers others’ deaths, repeatedly, until the idea of a life as a precious quality, belonging solely to its owner, smudges in his mind. But he has one indulgence: on a smartphone locked with unguessable code he visits again and again one line on one website: He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him.

The words are a context and a cradling. While they are there, he can go on.

Alone is what he has, but John protects him.


	2. For the Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 2 entry

‘He really was a fraud, John,’ Molly says, keeping her voice steady. ‘You need to accept that.’

It’s true, in ways she can’t reveal. Sherlock’s suicide was fraudulent, but John must never realise, for both their sakes.

‘I can’t.’ John’s tone is neutral, but his expression says, _et tu, Molly?_

She wants to hug him. Sherlock hugged her after she promised to say all this to John. Sherlock stroked Toby. Then he left.

John appears to be choking. ‘Go to hell,’ he mutters indistinctly, and marches away.

‘Done that,’ says Molly softly. Nobody’s listening, which is obviously for the best.


	3. DVD Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 3 entry

It’s DVD night at 221b, and we’re three seconds in…

 **Voiceover** *: You wouldn’t steal a car.

 **Sherlock** (sardonic): Not the kind shown on the cover of this DVD, no. People would think I was overcompensating for a miniscule brain.

 **Voiceover** : You wouldn’t steal a handbag.

 **Sherlock** (acerbic): As I do not require three lipsticks, a pink key fob and a poorly-written romantic novel, that is correct.

 **Voiceover** : You wouldn’t steal a mobile phone.

 **Sherlock** (disgusted): Nonsense. I have previously stolen both DI Lestrade’s and that of a Met media aide. Even I can’t deduce the phone numbers of the entire press corps unaided.

 **Voiceover** : You wouldn’t steal a DVD.

 **Sherlock** (deadpan): Correct. However, I might confiscate one from my idiot flatmate for his own good…

 **Voiceover** : Downloading pirated films is stealing.

 **Sherlock** (losing patience): I have not done so, you imbecilic epitome of the counterproductive...

 **Voiceover** : Stealing is against the law. Piracy, it’s a crime.

 **Sherlock** (full-on ranting): My god, if it was a crime it would be MORE INTERESTING! John, is this seriously supposed to be entertainment?

 **John** (smirking at the Sherlock Show): Works for me…

 

*This is a warning which appears at the start of English-language DVDs.


	4. Repercussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 4 entry

57 hours into the case, Sherlock’s legs buckle. John and Lestrade pick him up, and carry him to his bedroom.

‘Get off…’ protests Sherlock. ‘Must analyse sample…’

‘No. Must sleep,’ says John.

‘Conspiring against me…’ Sherlock mutters. 

Five seconds after they lower him to the bed, he starts snoring.

John and Lestrade exchange glances. It’s a conspiracy all right, to keep Sherlock going. One hostage will be executed while he sleeps, but nine more will live if he wakes refreshed and solves the puzzle. 

Sherlock barely notices such dilemmas. His friends take responsibility for him – and live with the repercussions.


	5. Infiltrator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 5 entry

John’s used to blurring personal boundaries. Under fire, you get pretty close. But he knows that what he’s doing tonight is different.

He’s sitting in the dark in his flatmate’s room, exploring Sherlock’s sleeping face. Stroking the pale forehead, tracing sharp cheekbones with his fingertip.

John’s heart is breaking with what he can’t have. That won’t change.

He still feels the need to be here.

John’s palm brushes over Sherlock’s lips. The movement sends a tingle up his arm…. and he freezes. Sherlock’s eyes flick open above John’s stationary hand.

Is he imagining Sherlock’s smile?

There’s no mistaking the kiss.


	6. Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 6 entry (a 221b)

Sally’s always done her job. She’s investigating a rape now and she’s going to nail the bastard, whatever’s going on in her head.

What’s going on isn’t good. Sherlock killed himself, and with the new evidence coming out, she realises she got him wrong. And was therefore partly responsible.

_If I leave flowers on his grave I’ll feel better._

It doesn’t work.

Sally’s always done her job. The evidence against Sherlock seemed sound. And the guy was so weird that yeah, she’d been expecting to hear dirt on him eventually.

_If I let myself cry for him, I’ll feel better._

It doesn’t work.

Sally arrests the rapist. He calls her a stupid nigger bitch and it crosses her mind that this is a fair judgement, after what she did to Sherlock. Being fooled into thinking that even for a moment makes her so angry she almost punches the handcuffed suspect.

_I was wrong and someone died. What am I going to do about it?_

Sally leads the rapist to the cells in silence. She gets enough bloody prejudice chucked at her, and she can do better than pay it forwards. So she thinks about what’s counts as ‘weird’, and when that is or isn’t suspicious. She’ll learn.

Sally will always do her job. Nobody’s guiltless, but you can strike a balance.


	7. Conflagration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 7 entry

John,

While I find disclosure of emotion difficult, I understand that in making a declaration of attachment it is standard practice to delineate one’s state of mind using unexpected combustion as a metaphor. As a chemist I find this trope convenient. Therefore please note that:

You have ignited my affections.  
You have inflamed my desires.  
You have catalysed my transformation.

It would further appear that you have incinerated my inhibitions.

Shall we undertake an attempt at fusion? Proximity and extreme heat will be required.

(I know there is a gaucheness to my self-expression… I have been burned before.)

Yours,

Sherlock


	8. Deal-Making

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 8 entry (and competition winner)

1

Enough drugs, sufficient fasting, and the transport betrays you.

Sherlock observed, intently, from a corner of his mind the first time this happened. He was lying in a puddle of urine in an Oxford alley. He couldn’t move, and his vision was increasingly blurred.

It was, if he parsed himself with the remnants of consciousness, a study in motive. Instinctive rebellion against the drive to achieve, to perceive, by taking in poison instead of fuel. Possibly leading to asphyxiation on vomit in a gutter. Not what his parents had planned for their brilliant if hateful son.

To hell with insight. Sherlock passed out.

2

Some years later, with drugs out of the equation, he had precisely calculated the level of food/sleep deprivation that brought maximum focus without degradation of his deductive capacity. The effortless achievements of childhood would never return, but the pursuit of a fixed solution in tandem with the measurable dwindling of personal resources was a framework rigorous enough to control his imperfections. 

Until the occasion when his knees gave out, and he found himself lying in a gutter with John peering down at him, face furrowed with worry.

‘You’ve starved yourself to the point of collapse, you absolute tosser.’ 

They got home somehow.

3

‘John, you seriously think I’m using self-denial as a crutch because people were nasty to me when I was ickle?’

‘Since you mention it, yes.’ 

‘Asinine.’

‘Then eat your toast.’

Sherlock never did anything without cause. It was with some astonishment that he discovered the cause of reassuring John had risen to a higher priority than that of maintaining a static relationship to the past.

To hell with the past. Sherlock reached for the marmalade, and logged John’s grunt of approval. 

Enough domesticity, sufficient maturation and the heart betrays you.

It feels surprisingly good.


End file.
